On Sept. 18, the Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit dedicated to advancing patient safety in hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, announced the release of its “2024 Hand Hygiene Report.”
According to a press release on the report, Leapfrog began public reporting on hand hygiene in 2020. And, since then “the percentage of hospitals meeting its rigorous standards has soared from 11% to 74% by 2023.” Additionally, the report found a 78% rise in hospitals holding leadership directly responsible for hand hygiene through performance reviews or compensation adjustments
“Improved hand hygiene is a vital intervention for reducing healthcare-associated infections and enhancing patient safety in hospitals, and the Leapfrog standard is the most rigorous in the industry,” the release added.
Further, “The report also reveals a dramatic increase in the adoption of electronic hand hygiene monitoring systems. In 2020, only 4.7% of hospitals employed such technology; by 2023, this figure has more than doubled to 10%. This growth demonstrates a broader trend toward integrating advanced tools to address the limitations of human observers.”
Leapfrog’s Hand Hygiene Standard mandates that clinicians and staff observe hand hygiene best practices from a national Hand Hygiene Expert Panel and is adapted from the World Health Organization’s “Hand Hygiene Self-Assessment Framework.” Currently, there’s no standardized method to measure actual compliance levels among staff within individual hospitals. Leapfrog says it verifies evidence-based best practices known to achieve high levels of compliance.
Hospitals are evaluated across five key domains including monitoring, feedback, training and education, infrastructure, and culture.
Emily Landon, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and Leapfrog Expert Panelist was quoted in the release saying that “Hand hygiene is fundamental to preventing infections in all health care settings, as pathogens on unclean hands can easily spread between patients or contaminate clean surfaces. While the report highlights a dramatic improvement in hand hygiene practices, continued vigilance is essential to sustaining progress and closing gaps in compliance to protect more patients. So, we are grateful that Leapfrog continues to report on this critical standard."
